Chapter 23 #2
We don’t say a word in the elevator up to my place, but the air between us is loaded, thrumming, crackling with every breath.
She’s fidgeting, pretending not to, the pad of her thumb tracing the clutch she refuses to let me carry for her.
I’ve seen her naked. I’ve made her come so hard she actually cried and made her scream my name loud enough to set off the privacy alarms in the Velvet Stag, but this, the two of us in an ordinary elevator, dressed up and doing our best to play human, is somehow more vulnerable than all of that.
The doors open. I key us in. The penthouse swallows us whole.
Cat steps out onto the marble, toeing off her heels, leaving them perfectly askew. Her height drops five inches, her posture another inch when she relaxes.
She doesn’t ask for a drink, but I pour her one anyway. She takes it from my hand, knocking it back fast, then sets the glass down so deliberately that I have to wonder what she’s about to say.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, voice tight.
I stare at her, trying my best to look confused when I know full well exactly what she is referring to.
“With Holt and some of the others.” She’s standing by the window now, hands folded behind her, like she’s about to take a confession. “You didn’t need to.”
I watch her silhouette, backlit by the city. The color of her gown is almost black in the dark, the slit exposing an indecent expanse of thigh. She’s the most beautiful thing in the apartment and she knows it.
“I wanted to,” I answer.
She turns then, slowly, as if giving me time to change my mind. “You’re an asshole, Aiden.”
I cross the floor to her, no hesitation. “You love that I am.”
She looks up at me. There’s nothing soft in her gaze, but it’s not hard, either. It’s just…hers.
“You’re not going to fuck me against the glass,” she says. “Not tonight.”
I smile. “You want to bet?”
“Not tonight,” she repeats. She steps past me, shrugging off the dress as she goes, letting it fall in a swish of silk onto the white linen sofa. She’s wearing nothing underneath, not a single stitch, and I cannot stop the blood from rushing from my head.
I follow her down the hall. She pauses at the doorway to the bedroom, one hand on the frame. Then she glances back, over her shoulder, and I realize she expects me to undress before I come to her. Fair is fair.
I strip off the jacket, the shirt, the tie. Cat’s eyes fixed on me the whole time. She grins when I stop at the pants. “You can leave those.”
She crawls into the middle of my bed, curls up on her side, and watches me cross the floor. She’s almost shy. That’s new.
I slip in behind her, curling my body around hers, my hand on her hip, my mouth at the nape of her neck. She’s warm, impossibly so, the muscle under her skin taut and trembling. I want to devour her but I hold back. Tonight is different.
“Are you going to say something clever?” she whispers, echoing the ballroom.
“No,” I murmur into her hair. “Just this.”
My hand slides over her thigh, up to the dip of her waist, then around to cup her breast. Her nipple is already hard, puckered under my palm.
I stroke her, gentle at first, then harder, listening for the shift in her breathing.
She shifts back, grinding her ass into my crotch, and I feel myself thicken, harden, pulse with every movement she makes.
“Fuck,” I say. I don’t mean to, but it’s the only word that fits.
She laughs, just a tiny huff of air, and then she rolls over, pressing her chest to mine, her mouth searching for my lips.
She kisses like she does everything, hungry, calculating, unwilling to lose.
I let her have the upper hand, let her set the pace, even as my hands roam over her body, mapping the terrain I already know by heart.
Her body is curvy and soft, but there’s a violence to her, an urgency. She moves fast, grinding her pussy against my thigh, biting at my lower lip until I give in and kiss her back, slow and deep.
She moans. It’s a sound I’ve never heard from her before, less porn, more pain, like she needs this more than air.
I run my hands down her back, find the small heart-shaped birthmark below her left ear, and mouth it gently. She shivers.
She kisses me again, open-mouthed, then slides down my body, hooking her fingers in the waistband of my pants.
She yanks them off with the efficiency of someone who’s been waiting for this since the first day we met. My cock springs free, already leaking, and she wraps her hand around it, squeezing tight at the base.
“You have no fucking idea how hot you are,” she says, deadpan, like she’s talking about the weather.
“I do,” I say, but she’s already taking me in her mouth, slow, savoring it.
She sucks like she wants to memorize the taste, every inch. I fist her hair, not to control her, but to anchor myself to the reality that this is happening, that she’s here, that I am letting her see me this way, nothing between us but skin and sweat.
She looks up, eyes wide, and I come dangerously close to losing it right then. But I hold out, because I want to fuck her, and I want it to last.
“Cat,” I warn, but she ignores me, going harder, deeper, until I have to pull her off with a gasp.
She wipes her mouth, grinning, then climbs back up my body and straddles me.
She grinds against me, slow and wet, and I grab her hips, guiding her until the head of my cock is poised at her entrance. She slides down, inch by inch, tight and hot and perfect.
I watch her face as she takes me inside her. She keeps her eyes open, locked on mine, refusing to give me even a second of privacy. I want to look away, but I don’t. I can’t.
She rides me, slow at first, then harder. She’s controlling the rhythm, squeezing her pussy around my cock every time she comes down. The feeling is obscene, almost unbearable.
I grab her ass, pull her down harder, thrust up to meet her. She laughs, delighted, then leans down and bites my neck.
“Mine,” she says, voice guttural.
I agree. “All fucking yours.”
She comes first, of course. She always does. It’s what I want. I feel her pussy clamp down, her whole body spasming, her breath hot on my ear. I follow, spilling inside her, groaning her name so loud the windows could shatter.
She collapses on top of me, hair wild, skin slick. I hold her, stroking her back until her breathing slows.
After a while, she rolls off, tucking herself under my arm, head on my chest. She doesn’t say anything, and neither do I.
We lie there, staring at the ceiling, the city lights painting everything blue and gold.
Cat falls asleep first. I watch her, counting the seconds between her breaths, wondering when this stopped being about control and became something I actually needed. Maybe it always was.
I stare at the ceiling, my hand in her hair, not planning, not strategizing, just being present.
For once, it feels enough.